Tag: HIV | CATIE Blog

U=U should mean reproductive freedom — but many fertility clinics haven’t caught up yet

December 1, 2025 • By Mona Loutfy and Amy Ly

Someone living with HIV calls a fertility clinic to ask about booking a consultation. They may have spent months planning for this moment, choosing the right time, the right support, the right words. But instead of a clear pathway to care, they are told that they need to be referred somewhere else. Or that the clinic is “not sure” whether they can provide services. Or they are met with silence on the phone while someone tries to decide how to respond. For many people living with HIV who want to build families, this is still a familiar experience. For people...

Silence is not neutral: Canada’s leadership has stalled on HIV criminalization reform and communities are paying the price

November 25, 2025 • By Chad Clarke

It has been nearly a decade since Canada first acknowledged that the criminalization of people living with HIV was harmful, outdated and rooted in stigma rather than science. In 2015, when a new government took power at the federal level, there was hope. Momentum. A promise of modernizing the law, of ending the era of prosecuting people living with HIV based on fear instead of facts. I know, because I was there. As a member of the Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization, I have spent years in meeting rooms, Zoom calls, consultations and roundtables. We worked with Ministers of...

Advancing awareness: Canadian Positive People Network’s U=U Task Force and the fight against HIV stigma

November 11, 2025 • By Breklyn Bertozzi

At the Canadian Positive People Network (CPPN), we strive to end HIV stigma. We also recognize that people living with HIV provide the movement’s strongest guiding voices. That’s why our U=U Task Force is led by people living with HIV and is dedicated to sharing one of the most groundbreaking messages in public health: Undetectable = Untransmittable. U=U means that when a person living with HIV is on effective treatment and has an undetectable viral load, they cannot transmit the virus to their sexual partners. It’s a message that transforms lives, dismantles stigma and redefines what it means to live...

Serving PrEP realness: How Priss Cryption is using drag to power HIV prevention

November 11, 2025 • By Priss Cryption

As a pharmacist, pharmacy professor and researcher who also happens to be a drag queen, I’ve learned something vital from both the clinic and the club: people listen – and learn – when they feel seen. Through my drag persona Priss Cryption, I’m building programs that meet communities where they already gather, bringing HIV pre‑exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and emerging STI prevention tools like doxycycline post‑exposure prophylaxis (doxyPEP) to stages, bars, classrooms and social feeds. It’s glitter with a purpose. The need is urgent. Canada reported 2,434 new HIV diagnoses in 2023, a 35% increase from 2022, reminding us that progress...

Let’s talk about how to manage inflammatory skin conditions in people living with HIV

August 18, 2025 • By Daniel Rayner, Dr. Eric McMullen and Dr. Philip Doiron

Despite significant advancements in the treatment and management of HIV/AIDS, many people living with HIV experience skin problems as either standalone conditions or resulting from HIV infection itself. Research shows that over 90% of people living with HIV in a recent U.K. based hospital study had skin conditions. But what are some of the common skin issues associated with HIV? Also, how can treating these skin issues maintain and improve the quality of life of people living with HIV? Eczema People living with HIV are at a higher risk of developing eczema compared to the general population. Ezema can present...

HIV criminalization and the Canadian government’s failed law reform project: Another. Incredible. Disappointment. Surprise!

April 2, 2025 • By Chad Clarke with contributions from Colin Johnson

The Government of Canada has broken its promise to reform the laws that criminalize people living with HIV. In November 2024, the Federal Justice Minister’s office informed the Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization (CCRHC) that the federal government’s long-promised initiative addressing the “overcriminalization” (their term) of HIV was not going to move forward. This announcement came after almost a decade of difficult work on the part of the HIV community. Blood, sweat and tears and some lives were lost while we worked on developing a workable consensus statement that would satisfy a majority of Parliament. The government squandered time,...